Everything I could do NOT to cry...

Ya know...there are just times when a girl needs to cry. A good wailing that gets it all out and cleanses the soul. And boy did I almost have a breakdown on Friday.

First of all...I could not sleep Thursday night. That happens often in the summertime. Mainly because I get to sleep till I wake up, take naps, and lounge to my heart's desire. Sometimes I do all those things in one day in the summer, and by the time bedtime rolls around my eyes don't want to cooperate.

Anyway...my dad worked hard on the entertainment center and the time we got to work on it together over Father's Day weekend was priceless for me. But Friday was the day that I was going to get it. My folks rented a little U-Haul trailer and drove it all the way down to my house. And I was excited.

I cleared the workout room to make room for it while Brad helped my dad take it out of the trailer. They brought it inside and through the living room. From our living room you have to go through a little doorway and through a hallway to get to the bedroom and the workout room. And dang it...my beautiful entertainment center would not fit through the doorway. They tried to turn it every which way they possibly could but it was not going to go through. Unfortunately there were no other corners it would fit in.

So.

My beautiful entertainment center is sitting in the perfect corner of the master bedroom in my sister's house!

It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day!

Father/daughter projects and so forth...

There's not much I can claim to know, but one thing I do is that I will never get too old to work on do-it-yourself projects with my Dad. Definitely.

Way back several years ago when I was single and living in Denver, I purchased a corner-style entertainment center. A lovely piece that I adored before all of the moving fun ensued...which is a story for another time. By the time I made a more permanent move to Dallas, I didn't have a place to put my lovely piece of furniture. So...I deposited in my parents' living room for them to use and enjoy. Lo and behold they moved a couple months ago and would no longer have a place for it. So I said that I wanted it back but that I wanted to paint it black. Now...because of all the pins I see on Pinterest that boast of how easy it is to paint furniture, I had planned to just throw some primer on it and do a bang up job of spray painting it. But when I told my dad that I wanted to paint it, he said that he would help me. He...by the way...is the handiest knight in shining armor that I know. If he doesn't know how to do something, he will find out how, and make it look better than anything I could go and spend a fortune on. So. I jumped on his offer and made my way up last weekend to his house on Father's Day weekend so I could help him paint the durn thing.

And...oh my stars...we had so much fun.

We sanded.

And...OY!...were my arms sore. FYI...sanding is not for the faint of heart!

We washed it down with TSP. I have no idea what that is except that it is a cleaning agent and it takes scuff marks off doors and walls, etc. -and- that you can wash down something that you just sanded. Oh...and you can buy it a Lowes or Home Depot.

We painted it red. (And then let it dry.)

We painted it black. (And then let it dry.)

And then we got some clean white cloths (old t-shirts cut into strips) and dabbed them with some denatured alcohol...which I had never heard of till I was 43...and ran it across small places such as edges and corners, etc. This step removed the black paint and revealed the red underneath making it looked distressed.

Then. We stopped for the weekend. And enjoyed some fun family time with my nephew, Chad, his wife, Jenn, and their precious angel, Anna Grace.

Then...after I went home...my Dad applied a few coats of lacquer. And...voila!

I love the finished project. But I will treasure it all the more because of the memories we made transforming it.

It was the best Father's Day gift I've ever received!!

A little of this and a little of that...

I could never be a house cleaner. A maid, that is, which I haven't heard anyone say in a long time, so it could be that the term is now politically incorrect. Regardless, I was not cut out for that type of work, and I'll tell you why. It hurts, that's why!  Last Thursday, we surrendered our keys to the owner of the house we've lived in for three years, which meant that Wednesday I had to go over and load my car with our remaining possessions and clean it from top to bottom while Brad socialized worked. It took me 3 1/2 hours to clean the whole house and that was without anything in it!  And the next day I felt it...everywhere. By the way...I highly suggest that you never use double-sided tape to secure a rug to any kind of flooring. But if you already have, plan on using some Goo Gone and a lot of scraping when you're ready to take it up. Really! 

So the last week and a half has been one big moving and cleaning adventure...at home and work...and do you know that I'm still not done at home nor at work!  And I SO wish I were because mamaw is tired and sore!  But enough about that.

Unfortunately, I don't think our relationship with our new digital cable/Internet provider is going to work out. Our needs are just not being met, and we've given them a new chance every night for a week and a half and we have yet to watch a full episode of anything without squiggly lines and audio problems. Oh it's fine if we sit real still in one place and refrain from getting on the Internet while the t.v. is on. But if we veer from that, it's all downhill. However, we called them today and had them reset our modem and our cable box.  Now all the people on the HD channels look like robots.  We just can't live this way anymore.  And we certainly cannot watch the Summer Olympics this way, so it's time for this company to pack up and go home. They will not be receiving a rose. And the search continues for a provider who will go the extra mile and deliver the goods. So, I believe that we could be considered spoiled t.v. snobs now.

Hail.  That's what it just finished doing outside for the 4th time in the last week and a half, and that would not be a big deal except that our garage still has boxes in it instead of our cars.  What the hail?!  Haha.